[6] Tecklenburg was defeated in 2023 by former state legislator William S. Cogswell Jr.[7] He became the first mayor of Charleston to lose a reelection campaign since 1959.

He graduated from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., with a Bachelor of Science in chemistry and later studied jazz at Berklee College of Music in Boston.

[12][13][14] Tecklenburg ran for mayor of Charleston and won against Leon Stavrinakis on November 17, 2015.

In June 2020, in the wake of widespread protests against racism, Mayor Tecklenburg announced a decision to remove a statue of John C. Calhoun, a prominent South Carolinian defender of slavery, from a prominent public space in Charleston, in Marion Square.

Tecklenburg had used his ward's funds to make unsecured loans to himself and his wife totaling $80,000.